2021 NBA Playoffs: An Unpredictable (Finally) Tournament
For the past decade, it has been pretty easy to predict who will make the NBA Finals.
Whoever LeBron James was playing for was probably going to be there. If the Golden State Warriors were near or at the top of Western Conference, they were probably going to be there. Some years it was going to be the San Antonio Spurs or Oklahoma City Thunder.
Last year was a little more of a guess since it was a two-star team league. This year, it’s much more challenging in the 2021 NBA playoffs, which starts today and will have fans and team arenas for the first time in two years, a return to normalcy in some sense.
For the Eastern Conference, the Brooklyn Nets are the boom-or-bust favorites to arrive even though they’ve struggled with injuries to their stars and don’t have a great defense, which is not typical of a superteam.
In the West, it’s anyone’s guess. The defending champion-Los Angeles Lakers were the favorites going into the season but have dealt with injuries to their stars even worse than the Nets and, as a result, sunk down to the 7th seed, having to survive the play-in tournament, which they did so against the Warriors. The first six seeds all have a chance of getting there, but none of them have the experience and credibility of LeBron and his crew.
One of those six teams that has me and many other fans who read this excited are the Dallas Mavericks coming in at №5, the highest seed they’ve been since the 2011 banner year. After a slow 8–13 start to the season derailed by key role players out on COVID-19 protocol, the Mavs woke up, playing up to preseason expectations, going 34–18 the rest of the season and giving them their first Southwest Division title in 11 years, finishing at 42–30.
Leading the way was the next NBA great, Luka Doncic, who made All-NBA first team, averaging 27 points, 8.6 assists and eight rebounds for the regular season. Their record-setting offense from last season may not be the same, but the defense has picked it up (in today’s standards), ranking seventh in points allowed at 110.2 points.
The concern for this team moving forward is the health of their other superstar, Kristaps Porzingis. The 7'3” unicorn missed the first ten games of the season due to a lateral meniscus tear that happened in August in the first round of last year’s playoffs against the Los Angeles Clippers. Since then, he’s had several minor injuries and has rarely played on back-to-backs. Porzingis is shooting a career-high 47 percent from the field with 20.1 points per game.
Outside of those two, the Mavericks haven’t been able to find a reliable and consistent №3 scorer. Some nights it could be Tim Hardaway Jr., Josh Richardson, Jalen Brunson or Dorian Finney-Smith. Until they find that guy and get a big man who can dominate the paint, Dallas is going to have a hard time winning a championship. Even though Doncic seems like he wants to stay a Maverick his whole career, you can’t say for sure if he doesn’t have a good enough roster around him as we’re seeing with many superstars in today’s NBA.
Now for the Mavs’ first-round opponent, they’ll be getting the same opponent from last year, the Los Angeles Clippers, which is a nice time to get some revenge. Porzingis left in Game 3 last year as L.A. won in six, so it would be a more fair game to see all the stars playing. We know how the Clippers slacked off last year, blowing a 3–1 lead in the second round against the Denver Nuggets, giving up several double-digit leads, but is that the version of Paul George aka “Pandemic P” we’re going to see this time or is he, Kawhi Leonard and all the other players going to step up this time around after those lofty expectations were made once they joined forces?
I don’t think they’ll get there, but I don’t want to get too caught up in my team, so I’m going to go with the Clippers in 7. However, with how we saw Doncic perform in last year’s playoffs against them, we shouldn’t be surprised if he and this young Mavs team make some noise and pull off the upset. Also, it would be nice to get some revenge against Rajon Rondo, who quit on Dallas in his time there and butted heads with head coach Rick Carlisle.
Here below are my first round predictions, which starts today at 1 p.m. CT:
Western Conference:
- Utah Jazz over 8) Memphis Grizzlies in 5
7) Los Angeles Lakers over 2) Phoenix Suns in 6
3) Denver Nuggets over 6) Portland Trail Blazers in 6
4) Los Angeles Clippers over 5) Dallas Mavericks in 7
Eastern Conference:
- Philadelphia 76ers over 8) Washington Wizards in 5
2) Brooklyn Nets over 7) Boston Celtics in 6
3) Milwaukee Bucks over 6) Miami Heat in 6
4) New York Knicks over 5) Atlanta Hawks in 5
For my Finals prediction, the Eastern Conference is going to come down to the Sixers, Nets and Bucks. Philly has stepped it up with Doc Rivers coming in as head coach with center Joel Embiid having an MVP-caliber season, but the shooting of his co-star Ben Simmons is a concern. The Bucks are always one of the best teams in the regular season, but they just can’t get it done in the postseason with Giannis Antetokounmpo having no other star to team up with.
Brooklyn has had a tough time keeping all three of their stars healthy at the same time as they have only played eight games together, but when Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden, who was traded from Houston this season, are playing together, they’re just too much, particularly on the offensive end. I’m going to say their defense gets fixed and rookie head coach and Hall-of-Famer Steve Nash will finally get to his first Finals after not getting there as a player.
When it comes to the Western Conference, I don’t know if I’ve ever been more unknowing of a championship prediction before the playoffs in any league. Utah doesn’t have star power outside of Donovan Mitchell, who has struggled with injuries this season. Like the Jazz, Phoenix overreached after ending the previous season on a 8–0 run in the bubble, giving them momentum toward a magnificent regular season. They finished second in the conference, made the playoffs for the first time since 2010 and got a MVP-caliber year by Chris Paul, who like Oklahoma City, wasn’t supposed to take this young team too far.
Denver lost their second-best player in Jamal Murray to a torn ACL despite Nikola Jokic being an MVP finalist. The Clippers don’t have the drive despite talent and George isn’t the same player he used to be. The Mavericks are still growing up. Portland doesn’t have a defense. The Lakers haven’t been able to stay healthy — -but someone has to represent the West.
At the end of the day, I just don’t trust any of the other teams to get there. In the long run, I can see the injuries to LeBron and Anthony Davis get to them. (Having an offseason of just two months probably didn’t help older guys like LeBron at 36 who also had to play through a shortened 72-game season with lots of back-to-backs.) Heck, it could be earlier and lead to a first-round exit, but when healthy, this is the best team in the West, especially with the experience. Like Tom Brady, I don’t like to bet against LeBron until it becomes too much.
For the Finals, I think Irving and co. will get the best of his ex-teammate LeBron and his Lakers because the Nets are just too loaded. Durant wins his third Finals MVP with another superteam and Harden gets his first ring to cement his legacy (sort of). If they don’t get it done this year, they’ll get it done another year. They’re kind of like the Miami Heat Big Three era where they buy themselves into a championship.
It’s going to be weird seeing the playoffs throughout the whole month of June and much of July on the eve of football season, but at least it’s not weird as a bubble arena with no fans in August-October. Hopefully, I can enjoy these playoffs more as arenas are allowing up to as many as 15,000 fans.
